Hi,
I just picked up a 98 1.8T quattro this weekend. I was told that the car has a bad ECU due to a short that occured with a positive wire grounding against the transmission bell housing.

I was hoping someone could help me identify this wire.

I found it this weekend while I was looking around the car. The wire is red in color, it starts from the rear right hand side of the engine bay (if you 're standing in front of the car looking at the engine) and it travels along the rear top of the engine towards the front middle left side. near the exhaust header. The wire feels like a typical rubber encased spark plug or 02 sensor wire but with limited visiblity I couldn't tell exactly. I'm going to get under it this weekend and dig in depth but if someone knew what I was talking about maybe I could go ahead and order / replace it this weekend.

Also is this a common problem with these cars? I've read through the forums already and saw the sticky on the common problems these car face, but I didn't see anything about this one.

Also can a positive that has been grounded cause an ECU failure or short/ I would think there would be preventative fuses that would blow power to the ECU in the case of grounding.

I'm a newb with Audi's so any comments would be appreciated.

ps anyone have a wiring diagram on this car?

Thank you!